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Gamma/colour bug – anyone come up against this?
I’ve come up against a really frustrating bug within FCPX that has proved problematic on a couple of occasions and wondered if anyone else had seen the same.
It seems as though FCPX is altering the colour of clips automatically.
Whilst this is a pretty bad failing in any scenario, it’s a particular issue when sending edits out for grading when the required deliverable is a simple flat ProRes_4444 export.
The issue is that, if footage has been recorded “flat” or “log”, this then goes out of the window as soon as it’s imported into FCPX. What you’re left with is something that looks as though it has had a “look” applied – the deviation from the original source is that pronounced. I have seen the same thing happen on 2 macs, one being a new Mac Pro with the latest OSX installed.
This is clearly a bug, as if the same media is “reconnected” FCPX will briefly display the image CORRECTLY, in it’s intended “flat/log” form. However, on closing and re-opening the software once again the colours have shifted. Even if you try and export the sequence when the image looks accurate after the reconnect trick, the resultant is off the mark.
When delivering an XML, this is not the end of the world as the original files will be referenced and then displayed correctly by DaVinci or whatever colour grading software is being used. But I have been asked, and do get asked, for self-contained ProRes4444 exports for colourists sometimes – and in this scenario what comes out of FCPX is not correct.
On a couple of occasions I have had to use Xto7 to get the sequence into FCP7 in order to export a ProRes file that has the correct, flat colours. This is obviously untenable.
Has anyone got a magic solution that is going to save me this perennial headache once and for all? This is such a promising piece of software but errors like this really put me off using it for more projects.
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12 Replies
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Question is: what format is the original material before the apparent transcode?
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There are controls for this.
Turn off Log Processing that is found in the inspector under “settings”.
Here’s a screengrab:
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Turn off Log Processing that is found in the inspector under “settings”.”
Which would have been my next post once he confirmed it was the appropriate (i.e. suspected) format, yes… ;-D
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Jeremy,
OK…so you are a hero for solving this.
It worked perfectly.
Not only is this a solution to my immediate problem, but it presents an actually VERY useful feature when used in the right way. In fact, its fantastic. Clients hate looking at flat footage in an edit…I’ve even been asked to do a quick pre-grade on some edits to stop them griping about it looking “washed out”. This little feature means I’ll never have to bother with that again…just whack on one of the appropriate log processing options.
As much as learning this software has infuriated me beyond belief over the past year or so…little things like this make me think maybe I wasn’t a total nut job to give it a chance.
Thank you!
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By the way Robin, in both scenarios where I came up against this the original material was 2K ProRes 4444 files – both of which were shot on a camera that natively shoots in that format. It was an Arri Amira I believe…but I don’t know squat about cameras (expect that GoPro is the devil)…so that may be entirely wrong.
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[Adam White] “Not only is this a solution to my immediate problem, but it presents an actually VERY useful feature when used in the right way. In fact, its fantastic. Clients hate looking at flat footage in an edit…I’ve even been asked to do a quick pre-grade on some edits to stop them griping about it looking “washed out”. This little feature means I’ll never have to bother with that again…just whack on one of the appropriate log processing options.”
It is very handy. You should know it is a global clip setting. If you turn it off in a timeline or browser, it will effect every instance of that clip everywhere.
I also love and LUT Utility (link) because it gives you a percentage slider to back off the LUT for quick output. You can also add this filter to an adjustment layer, and turn it on and off fairly easily. It really depends on what you need to do, and what your clients can tolerate.
I find LUT Utility to be really great quality, with virtually no impact on playback performance, and it’s priced very aggressively.
Jeremy
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The LUT Utility has been part of my tool kit for a little while now.
I love how it works. And for those jobs where speed is of absolute essence, it means I don’t have to sacrifice so much when it comes to finishing.
Thanks once again for this great tip!
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[Adam White] “it presents an actually VERY useful feature when used in the right way. In fact, its fantastic. “
That’s pretty much why it was introduced, yes. 😉
[Adam White] “It was an Arri”
That’s what I would have guessed.
[Adam White] “As much as learning this software has infuriated me beyond belief over the past year”
No offence, but judging by you last few posts… I’m not surprised. It would appear that you are missing some of the most basic knowledge (i.e. training) as far as X is concerned. The whole learning-by-doing thing isn’t always the best or even vaguely efficient route. 😉
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I did a couple training series (the Larry Jordan one was good) at first and later lots of day to day cutting on various different kinds of projects. It wasn’t really a case of “learning by doing” as I was very hesitant to cut with it for any paid jobs for quite some time…but ultimately tutorials only get you so far…there are so many little intricacies and nuances that I would never have found out about until a real world situation demanded it.
I don’t think it’s an easy piece of software to get to grips with by any stretch. I genuinely found FCP7 and, to a lesser extent, Avid, easier to pick up in the early stages. The paradigm shift is doubtless the main factor.
Not that any of that matters too much now…I’m starting to reap the rewards – of which there are many.
Audio is still a perennial issue that causes headaches…especially when sending edits out for a sound mix – I’ve had some ridiculous situations with X2Pro Audio Convert – it’s let me down a couple times when I really needed it to “just work”. That was fun. Hoping for both feature and maintenance upgrades to make the back end of the process far less stressful when it comes to audio.
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Slightly tangential, maybe, but I think how “hard” FCPX is to “grasp” for any particular editor depends on how much they have to un-learn first. If you come from a standard NLE timeline experience first, FCPX may look scary or weird. If you never used an NLE before, but HAVE used, say, Garage Band to cut audio with… Maybe FCPX would seem a little more intuitive? Just a thought. And yes, Garchow is an angel of help for many, many COW users, myself included.
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